And again, despite what people think, French is useful, even if you’re not planning on going to/living in France. After English, it is the language with the highest number of students. It is taught in every country of the world, so you’ll therefore likely have a chance no matter where you go to speak French.

If you’re going to Europe, consider not only France, but Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, parts of Italy and Monaco. Romania and Spain also have a decently-sized Francophone minority.

If you’re going to the Caribbean, try countries like Haiti, where a Creole is spoken. There are also the beautiful Sugar Islands, which are French Overseas Departments.

As for Africa, I can’t even begin to list all 25 African countries that speak French.

Asia: Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, very small portions of India.

South America: French Guiana

North America: Quebec & New Brunswick, it is also the second most spoken language in three U.S. states. Keep in mind that Canada is our biggest trade partner.

In addition, there are still four locations in the world (such as Jersey in the English Channel) that speak Norman, which is a predecessor of the French language. Though it sounds like French poorly pronounced, Norman is actually easier to understand than many Creoles.

And did you know that Mexico and the USA have the highest number of alliances françaises (French Alliances [centers for spreading the French language]) in the world?

French is also used as an administrative language of many international organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations (in fact, in the United Nations, there are six official languages — of these, only French and English are working languages).

In fact, taking in many factors such as political influence, countries in which it is spoken, number of speakers, number of learners, and other factors, French is ranked as the number two most important language in the world, following English and ABOVE Spanish.

Consider the following list of international jobs distributed by the U.S. State Department in 2007: 125 required or preferred French, 31 Spanish, 25 a UN language (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish), 10, Portuguese, 7 Arabic, 4 Russian, and 2 German.

France is one of the world’s leaders in nuclear power (did you know that after Russia and the U.S., they actually have the largest nuclear arsenal), in medicine, in manufacturing, and in business!! French is definitely more important in business than Spanish for the American people. The U.S. exported more to French speaking countries than any other language. They also have 15,000 troops deployed all around the world (such as in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Ivory Coast) where they are working to keep the peace.

And French is so pretty! Its unique history makes for a beautiful and entrancing language whose pronunciation is so mysterious that you can’t help but swoon when you hear it spoken well.

Besides … you already know Spanish . . . You can learn how to write it using a dictionary in your spare time. Meanwhile, you waste time in class learning how to tell time in Spanish…

Check it out:

I’m also taking french because i want to move to Quebec, Canada and they speak french there. French and Spanish are similar because they’re both derived from latin. However the phonetic sound is what throws most of us spanish speakers off. It does sound nice but after a while you become a bit tired of it since the sound rarely changes like spanish sounds do. But if you want to work for a company who has a lot of french customers, plan to visit a french speaking country (les pais francaphone) or have a french gf then go for it.

I’d say learn both and find out which one you like. Plus if you put down both languages in your college application it looks MEGA cool. Because i was a spanish speaker i took Spanish 4 & 5. But i took 2 years of french. Yeah, colleges like that.